Varushka people
Varushka is a hard country. Life here is a struggle; the summers are short and the winters are long. The land is wild and resentful – it resists taming and sends monsters to threaten those who would settle here. Varushkans are stoic and grim in the face of this adversity, only letting down their guard when they are able to secure their door against the dangers of the night.
To endure the predations of the land, the Varushkans have become guarded and wary. Most live in vales, wide valleys where the roads in and out can easily be watched. To survive here requires constant protection from the fell dangers that infest the land. If those who provide that protection sometimes exact a grim toll in return, that too is the Varushkan way. Varushkans have little time for fairy stories where everything ends happily ever after – they are a people well used to making hard choices.
Isolation is a fact of life here, with miles of dark, overgrown forest between the vales where darker powers hold sway. The Varushka have built roads to join their settlements and learned ways to ward those roads against the fell creatures that stalk the forests, but no warding is perfect and some evils cannot be kept out by magic alone. The people know that if they grow weak or soft, if they forget the lessons of their past and the blood that was spilled to learn them, then those dark powers will reach out to claim them.
The monsters (link to appendix A), the malign entities that dwell in the dark woods of Varushka come in many different forms. The weaker ones, the Varuskhans call Wolves, can be driven off by strength of arms alone, but the most dangerous, called Sovereigns, require more subtle ways to deal with them. Varushkans have learned to prize wisdom dearly, for understanding is essential to dealing with the threats they face. Sometimes these threats can be defeated and destroyed but more often they must be endured. And sometimes they must be bargained with, for no matter how distasteful it is a fact of life that it is better for one life to be lost than all.
The wealth of the land is what makes life in Varushka worth enduring. Veins of ore lie close to the surface, the trees provide valuable amber and the finest timber in the Empire while the forests and rivers teem with beasts. Danger is a constant companion, but the land provides commensurate reward for those who are careful and wise enough to endure its predations.
The Varushkan people are often considered pessimistic by outsiders. They expect the worst, and they prepare accordingly. Yet they also possess an irrepressible spirit – they endure hardship without complaint and they refuse to give in. They take fierce pride in their ability to prosper in a dangerous land. They carve out homes for their families from the darkest woods, and reap rich rewards for daring to live where lesser men and women would falter. No one can know the joy of small things like a Varushkan, for nothing is given them: they have fought for everything they have.
At one point, they were two peoples – the Vard and the Ushka. The necessity of living in a harsh land first blurred and then removed those distinctions centuries ago, and they are absolutely one people. The only exception is those Varushkans who are born with a white birthmark somewhere on their bodies. According to legend, this mark shows the child as having a strong connection to the ancient Ushka, and the shape of the birthmark may give a hint as to who the child may have been in a past life. Children born with such birthmarks are often a little fey and unpredictable, feeling a strong instinctual connection to the dark forests and are said to possess a natural talent for bargains – a “silver tongue flows from a silver mark.”